Page 52 of The Spy’s Song

"Silence. I hope this will be over quickly." She pushed her lips against his.

The door opened.

Rodrick stood in the doorway. He looked at her hands, which were gripping Gaetan's lapels, and at Gaetan's hands, which were hovering in the air on either side of her like a man who had been ambushed.

"My apologies, Gaetan," he said, in the pleasant voice of a man interrupting nothing of significance. "I believe you have my aide-de-camp."

He entered his bedroom with Louise in his arms, fury burning through his limbs, her weight a brand against his chest. As soon as they were inside, he put her back on her feet and stepped away. She stumbled back, and her breath hitched. Her gray eyes flared like steel struck with flame.

Gaetan's hands had been six inches from her, his expression suggesting imminent prayer, and Louise had kept one eye angled toward the doorway. It had been the least convincing seduction Rodrick had witnessed. He had nevertheless wanted to murder his best friend.

"You were making a fool of yourself," he said. His voice. He couldn't seem to hold it steady.

She lifted her chin and unfastened the chasseur's pelisse. The heavy coat slid from her shoulders and dropped to the ground with a thud.

Her brows arched as she loosened her shirt buttons. Her skin caught the low lamplight, her breasts bare, her nipples taut, and the appetite he had spent eighteen months assuming dead arrived with enough force to make his fingers curl.

"Are you listening to me, Princess?"

"You ruined my chance with Gaetan," she said, her gaze raking over him. "I assume you did it so you'll take his place."

Rodrick turned sharply away from her. His spine locked. His hands shook.

"So the Corsican brat returns," he said, forcing each word past the dry heat in his mouth. "What now? You plan to conquer your father's army one officer at a time?"

He heard her steps behind him, then her bare breast brushed his back.

"How does it feel to be jealous, Montfort?" she whispered. "Must be a new emotion for y—"

He spun and closed his arms around her, mouth crushing hers. Her lips parted beneath his. He kissed her with the unbearable possibility that Louise might have let another man access what Rodrick had spent their whole acquaintance pretending he didn't want.

When he tore himself away, both of them were breathing too hard. "If you wanted sweetness, you should have stayed in Gaetan's room. He has an indecent surplus."

Louise caught the front of his coat. "And if I don't care for sweetness?"

Despite the Corsican bravado, Rodrick saw what it cost her to keep that impossible chin raised. She might not care for sweetness, but Rodrick fucking craved it from her mouth.

He kissed her again, differently this time. The anger left first, then some of the desperation, until he could feel the shape of her lips beneath his instead of trying to devour them. Rodrick slid his hands over her bare breasts, cupping them slowly, and Louise shivered against him.

"So you really want the spy, Lou?" He breathed the question against her skin.

Louise nodded.

Rodrick closed his eyes. "Then you shall have him."

He caught her around the waist and lifted her clean off the floor. Louise gasped and grabbed his shoulders as he raised her high against him. Rodrick carried her the few steps to the bed and lowered her onto the mattress with care entirely at odds with everything he had just promised.

Then he reached for the fastenings of her breeches. Louise watched him work them loose, still breathing too quickly, and when he hooked his fingers into the waistband she lifted her hips. That small cooperation sent another hard pull of desire through him. Rodrick drew the cloth down slowly, over the curve of her hips and along her thighs, discovering inch after inch of pale skin until impatience finally won and he dragged the breeches past her knees and tossed them aside.

Louise's legs seemed designed without the slightest regard for economy, pale and smooth over the lean muscle that shaped her calves and thighs. Rodrick had imagined them often enough to qualify as an obsession, but imagination had failed badly. These were not delicate ballerina limbs. They were strong enough to hold her balanced on one foot, launch her through the air, wrap around a man and make retreat an academic concept.

"Fuck, Lou." He ran one hand slowly from her ankle toward her knee, feeling muscle shift beneath the skin. "These have absolutely no mercy."

Rodrick kissed the inside of her knee. He let his lips linger on skin warmer and softer than he had imagined. Louise shifted on the mattress, and Rodrick's stomach drew tight at the faint scrape of her heel against the sheet.

He moved higher, kissing the first few inches above her knee, and Louise froze. But when he traced the next kiss along the inside of her thigh, she curled her fingers into the bedding.

Rodrick slid his hand along her calf while he continued upward with his mouth. Louise moaned.